The Voices in the Storm: A Tale of a Father's Love
by epalladino
Summary: Why was the young Hellboy so afraid of thunderstorms? As long as he had his father with him the terrible voices that came in these storms could be kept at bay...


**Author's notes:** _(Beware of movie spoilers directly ahead if you haven't seen it.) _

I've had this idea rattling around my head ever since I wrote my first Hellboy stories, Father's Day Gifts and A Tale of 'Demon' Rights.

The movie Hellboy gives little indication of dates of the events in the present day section of the movie outside of Myers first meeting Hellboy and the rest of the BPRD on Halloween. One can then assume from the flow of the action of the film that Trevor Bruttenholm is dead by the evening of November 1st. But there is little indication of the time lag between his murder and the funeral. In my opinion there had to have been time to arrange for the funeral and investigate his death so I've always looked upon the date of the funeral as being Thursday, November 4th.

That would have been this past Thursday. I live and work in NYC and it intrigued me to no end that the weather of that day was so appropriate to the weather shown in the film for the day of the funeral. The weather in Newark would be about the same as weather in NYC and the progression of the storm this past Thursday was always the way I've portrayed the day of funeral in my mind; the day starts out gray and rainy with the storm becoming blacker and stormier as the day goes on.

As I was watching the storm out the window of where I work in the Bronx I couldn't help picturing poor Hellboy standing on the roof in the pouring rain. This image brought the idea of this story back into my head and I thought now would be a good time to write it.

_This story is dedicated to the memory of Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, died November 1, 2004._

**The Voices in the Storm: A Tale of a Father's Love**

As a small child he was terribly frightened of thunderstorms.

In the wind, and the rain, and the crash of the storm he could hear voices; ugly voices, dark voices, terrible voices. These voices would speak words he could not understand, but he knew they were bad voices, evil voices and they frightened him.

He would hide under the bed to get away from these terrible voices. He knew they were coming after him; he knew he had to hide from these evil, dark voices.

But then something would happen as he screamed and cried in that isolated dark under his bed; someone would come to him; someone would join him under the bed; arms would hold him and a gentle, kind voice would speak words of comfort.

And those dark, evil voices would be banished by the one he came to call Father; the one who called him Son and loved him as his own child regardless of his mysterious origins.

As time went on an interesting thing occurred. Another voice started to come to him in the crash of the storm; it was similar to the gentle, quiet voice of the one he called Father.

But it too was part of the storm. At first he could barely hear it; the dark, frightening voices were too loud. But there were times when he could almost understand what that gentle voice was saying.

As the years passed by, the ugly, dark voices in the wind, and the rain, and the crash of the storm began to fade. Little by little the small, still, gentle voice that reminded him of his father's voice drowned them out. He still couldn't understand what this voice was saying, but it had the power to drive the fear out of the storm.

He no longer hid under the bed during storms; he no longer cried out for his father to come to him. He would listen for his father's voice in the storm and knew that as long as his father was with him he need fear no evil.

He began to take his father's presence in his life for granted. After a while he stopped listening for his father's voice; he started to ignore him.

Then the night came that he lost his father; that black night the evil ones killed his father; the night that he held his father's body in his arms and knew that he would never hear his kind, gentle voice again.

Who would call him Son now? Who would drive away the evil, dark voices? Who would give him that constant love and forgiveness that he had come to take so for granted?

He stood on the roof in the pouring rain and watched as the hearse drove away with the coffin containing his father's body; heading for a funeral he was not permitted to attend.

The storm became even louder and more insistent; it mirrored the storm of anger, grief, and guilt raging in his very heart, mind, and soul.

He listened in desperation for his father's gentle voice in the wind, and the rain, and the crash of the storm. All he could hear was the ugly voices, the dark voices, the terrible voices; calling him home to that terrible place of his origins.

The dark, mysterious, evil place that his father had rescued him from. Who could save him from that place now?

He locked himself in his room. He wept and prayed and struggled fiercely against these deafeningly loud, insistent, and hideous voices. He didn't sleep; he didn't eat; he longed for his father's comforting voice and arms.

How could he have ever allowed himself to take his father for granted? The guilt that he felt was almost unbearable.

Then one night it happened; his father's voice came to him, begging him to go and get something to eat before he starved himself to death. Was this voice real? Was it the hallucination of a mind desperate with grief and guilt?

He wasn't sure that it mattered.

All he knew was that he had heard his father's gentle voice and it again drove away the dark, terrible, frightening voices. He had always tried so hard to do what his father would want him to. So he went out from his room and found something to eat.

Eventually the time came to revenge himself on those who had murdered his father. Then it happened; the one who was the chief of those ugly, dark voices trapped him.

Now he could understand what this ugly voice was saying: wipe humanity from the face of the earth or I will kill the woman you love.

He struggled against this temptation, but in vain; his love for this woman was too strong. Yet, before he could complete this final and hideous destruction another voice came to him, "Remember who you are! You have a choice. Your father gave you that choice."

The dark, ugly voice tried to tell him that he had no choice, but again his father's gentle voice drowned it out. He did as his father would have had him do and refused to destroy all of humanity just to rescue one person, regardless of how much he loved her.

* * *

In early November of 2005 there was a terrible storm raging in Newark, New Jersey. It was very similar to the storm that had occurred the day of Trevor Bruttenholm's funeral the year before and Liz Sherman was concerned when she couldn't find Hellboy anywhere in the BPRD's underground headquarters. She eventually located him on the roof of the building standing in the same location where he had stood on that terrible day.

She stood under her umbrella looking at him for a while and then walked over to him.

"You know your father wouldn't have wanted you to grieve like this, H.B. Why don't we go in and make a huge pot of hot chocolate."

Hellboy turned to her and she was surprised that despite the tears in his eyes he was smiling, "Mmm, hot chocolate sounds nice. But I think I'll stay up here just a little longer. I love these thunderstorms now, Liz." He looked up into the sky and appeared to be listening for something in the wind, and the rain, and the crash of the storm.

After a time he turned to her again, "I can hear my father's voice in these storms. I can understand what he's saying to me now."

_"It's not an ape...I think that is its hand... "_

_"Wait! Don't shoot... " _

_"Come on, jump down, it's safe... "_

_"It's a boy, just a baby boy...Hellboy...I call him Son. "_

Hellboy listened to his father's voice for a few more minutes. He then turned to Liz, the woman he loved more than anything else in the world, the woman that he had managed to save even without destroying all of humanity, "Let's go in and get that hot chocolate."


End file.
